Nora - The Sole Survivor
by CindyBarnard
Summary: What did she feel upon awakening? Upon realising her husband, her love, was dead? Murdered... Will she be the same person to exit Vault 111 that entered so long ago? Will life outside the Vault ever be safe? Predictable? 21/04/19: This one-shot (The Awakening) is being changed to an ongoing multichapter fic.
1. The Awakening

_Be Gentle, please... This is my first foray in fanfiction outside of Harry Potter universe. Fallout 4 is my favourite game and I suddenly felt the need to novelise it. So, here we go!_

_Un-beta'd, so mistakes are my own._

_Disclaimer: Fallout belongs to Bethesda and it's creators, I just play here._

**The Awakening**

It was the coughing that she was aware of first, that woke her. followed almost immediately by the blaring alarm. Although later she knew it had been her own coughing, her body reacting to the intake of stale oxygen after not breathing for who knows how long. Her lungs protesting suddenly having to work again themselves.

As Nora's chest heaved with the wracking coughs she was vaguely aware of the pod door lifting open to release her.

At first, she wasn't aware of memory or where she was. She just clambered out still coughing and blinking to get her eyes to focus; falling to her hands and feet on the floor letting her lungs adjust to the air filling them.

Slowly she became aware of the blaring alarm notifying her to exit and looking up she saw the rows of metallic pods either side of her as her eyes widened with memory flooding her mind.

"No… nononono-" She gasped out as she crawled to the opposite pod.

With stiff unused fingers, she started frantically touching the pod where she knew Nate and Shaun to be. She pulled herself up with her faltering clutching hands till she could see through the frosted glass to the limp body inside. "Nate! Nonononono… How do I open this-"

Nora's voice was barely audible, more of a grunt than anything else. She knew it was like her muscles, just still to be practised after having been frozen. Nora slammed the pod in an effort to get it open, prying at the opening slot with still fumbling and shivering hands. Finally, as a sob left her she noticed the control panel to the right. Without wasting a second she activated it and felt relief as the pod door opened. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she was vaguely aware of tears running down her cheeks but she paid them no mind. Her focus intent on the form inside the pod as the door finally revealed him fully. With a small sob, she lurched towards her husband grab his wrist to pull him up. To wake him.

She knew really, deep inside her she knew he wouldn't wake.

She remembered the flashes of her brief woken period prior, of him being shot. But she wanted him to wake. She needed him to wake. Her heart wouldn't handle being without him. Her soul couldn't live without him.

As she felt his stiff frozen arm not giving she then prostrated herself over his body. For now, she knew it was just a body. It wasn't Nate anymore. Just a frozen, dead, body. She sobbed for she didn't know how long into his cold neck, clutching at his frozen shoulders. She felt paralysed with the realisation that her Nate was dead. Her husband was dead. Gone.

Her heartbreak was a physical pain inside of her. It tore her open and in two. How would she go on? Nate was her everything. He had saved her so many times over in the past. He was her rock, her soul. He was her very conscious, for without him darkness would overtake her.

Finally, as the ice started to permeate into her vault suit fabric she realised that she needed to leave. She was still cold and stiff and lying on top of a frozen mass wasn't helping her if she wanted to avoid hypothermia. She wondered briefly where the clarity of thought came from to calculate the needed information to survive but then shook her head in dismissal. With a final sniff, she stood up from the lap of her dead husband. She then saw the glistening of his wedding ring on his left hand beneath the frost, with a small sigh she pried the ring off from his finger and pocketed it. It was most likely the only thing of his that she would have. Besides Shaun. The instant flood of memory of her baby then staggered her. She needed to find her son!

With that decision, she leaned forward to plant a small last kiss on her husband's forehead to seal her promise and give farewell. "I'll find who did this, Nate… I will find Shaun. And they will pay."

Her voice was more steady this time, albeit still scratchy, but steady.

XXX

Nora had to make her way through the vault with a lot of help from the walls. Her muscles were protesting this much activity after being frozen, but he didn't let it deter her. She had been even more shocked when she had realised she was the sole survivor. Everyone in the vault was dead. Frozen stiff in their failing pods. Why her pod had actually woken her up and opened she had no idea. And how long they had been down there was even more of a mystery. Looking at the rust and general feel of the desolation of the vault she guessed it to be quite a while.

She was glad when she had found the security baton. There was an air of eerie expectation in the vault that made her weary and peeking around corners as if something would jump her. A feeling that was confirmed when she saw what could only be described as a giant roach through the glass in one of the corridors she wondered through. After what was probably the fourth giant roach that she bludgeoned to death she came to a halt at the skeletal remains in front of her in the power room.

She had definitely been frozen for a very long time.

Nora closed her eyes firmly while trying to get her ragged breathing under control, fighting off the approaching panic attack. "Just a bit more, just a small bit farther Nora."

At last the encroaching darkness in her soul was pushed back and she opened her eyes once more. She couldn't let panic overtake her. Things had obviously gone very wrong after the bombs fell. The vault had also failed most definitely. She had no idea what, if anything, she would find outside. But if giant roaches were the order of the day down here, she could bet her arse that bigger things will then be out there. She would have to trample down her feelings. Her emotions. She would need to do what she must to find Shaun. To survive.

With that Nora squared her shoulders and with her still stiff muscles she opened the next door and stepped into the overseer's office.

XXX

With her hands still trembling from the after effects of being frozen, Nora picked up the Vault-Tec issue Pipboy from the skeletal remains of the long dead vault worker. She swiped off the dust and then fastened it around her wrist with an impassive face. Forcing the images of the bodies and other remains from her mind. She had to stamp down all emotion she kept telling herself if she was to survive. With a firm step she then connected her Pipboy to the vault door operation panel, Nora gave a quick glance back at the vault to her left.

With a last lone tear that trekked down her cheek, she gave a silent tribute to all the lost souls that died in there.

Their bodies forever entombed in this place of cold steel. Lost. Alone. Forgotten.

Nora felt herself becoming paralysed of feeling as she let it all in. Letting herself become lost. Letting dark shadow creep closer to her soul. She let the grief go of losing Nate, let herself become cold, hard.

Then, numbed and cold she pressed the button and watched as the mechanisms slid into place to open the lift for her to ascend to the surface.

With stiff legs, she walked onto the lift, very aware with every step that she took that she would never come back here. Never come back to this tomb. Never come back to her husband. Never let herself feel the pain of losing her love again. Never be reminded that her soul was dead along with everyone else in this tomb.

The elevator activated and rose to the surface where sunlight blinded her, but she didn't duck or hide. She welcomed it with firm resolve as she let her eyes finally rest on what was the world now.

Bleak. Dead.

With her squared shoulders, and the 10mm firmly held up and ready, she gave her first step into the world, off from the platform. She needed to survive the world if only to find Shaun.

For she was Nora. The Sole Survivor of Vault 111.


	2. The Meeting

_Notes: Same disclaimers apply from the first chapter._

_Also; Dialogue may/will differ from in-game for mostly story reasons._

**The Meeting**

Nora had just said goodbye to Preston the morning as she set off on another journey through the Commonwealth. It had become her thing in the months since her Awakening. She sat staring into the fire as she barbequed some of her mole rat chunks, her memory took her back to that day.

It had been lonely at first as she took in the dead world around her. She had gone to their old house instinctively and found Codsworth there. Codsworth had gone a bit mad due to the isolation she grimaced in thought. Well, if a robot could go mad she guessed. Although with all she has found out in the months since about the Institute and Synths she guessed that there might be more in robots than they believed two hundred years ago.

After clearing out Sanctuary she had set off to Concorde the next day where she had met the Minute Men leader, or what remained of them apparently. And she had her first encounter with the something bigger she had surmised existed while still in the vault. A Deathclaw they called the monster. And a monster it was.

A mutated lizard that stood well over ten feet tall! She has no idea in hindsight how she had survived the battle with that thing. In clunky old series power armour and a machine gun with limited ammunition.

Top that off with still protesting and weak muscles and limited battle experience. She had only learned to shoot and do basic hand to hand combat with her husband. He had insisted that she be able to help herself if the need ever arose. True war veteran her Nate was. Well, she guessed weekends upon weekends spent at the shooting range and in their backyard was a bit more than basic knowledge. She had become quite an adept shot and could hold her own in most hand to hand combat situations. But, shooting in a range and fighting against your own husband still didn't equate actual battle experience.

Yet, she had managed. Somehow… Between shooting the Deathclaw and still ducking and shooting the raiders she had come out alive. Sheer dumb luck.

The Deathclaw steak they ate that night back at Sanctuary at least made up for her trembling nerves. It was better than the radiated cans of Cram she had eaten the previous night that Codsworth had gotten her. And she could actually feel some health and strength returning to her weakened muscles after eating the barbequed meat. And she had Dogmeat then. The dog she had found at the Red Rocket just outside Sanctuary.

After that, she had settled into an odd pattern. Stay a bit in Sanctuary and help Sturgis make the place habitable. He taught her how to work the old Workshop and use tools and scrap junk for reuse. Then she would set out in a lone journey to some new location in search of clues of Shaun. So far she had found Diamond City where she met quite a few people, including Piper and Detective Nick Valentine. The latter of which had helped a lot in her search for Shaun.

Thanks to him she knew her next location was the Glowing Sea. The only problem was that she couldn't go into the Glowing Sea without serious medical supplies and a decent set of Power Armour with extra fusion cores to spare. So, for now, she was stuck until a solution presented itself. And thus being here tonight, having just decided to follow a military broadcast signal on AF95 hoping for a few Caps at the end of this. She had become quite well known as a gun for hire in the Commonwealth. Any errand, big or small she would do for the right amount of Caps. She just drew the line at killing innocents though… Somehow Nate's voice still spoke to her conscience when she was so lost in the numbing darkness that she would kill everyone while in a moment. He would then remind her of who she could still be and that would make her lift her gun at the last second to let an innocent go.

She could only hope that his voice would always be there to stay her hand. She worried that these days his voice was becoming fainter and less frequent, what would she become if she lost his voice completely? Nora shuddered with the fear of that happening. For a person that already had darkness in her soul this world wasn't really the best conductor. This world was dark itself and she could so easily become completely one with it.

Nora heard Dogmeat whine as he perked his ears in noticing her removing the molerat meat from the fire. With a smile at her canine companion, the only companion she allowed herself, she dropped some chunks in front of him. "There you go, boy… That's a good boy."

Dogmeat ate happily as she chewed her own chunk. Sometime later she realised it was time to catch shut eye after she had packed away the cooking utensils in her backpack. They had to leave early if they wanted to arrive at Cambridge Station at the crack of dawn.

It was still dark when Nora and Dogmeat left their campsite to finish the trek to Cambridge Police Station. The signal leading them through the rubble and ruin of post-apocalyptic Boston. Finally, they reached the barricaded station to shouts and gunfire and general discord. Nora immediately drew her trusty, now heavily modified 10mm along with Dogmeat that instantly assumed attach position. They both then entered through a side opening to see a few soldiers standing their own against a horde of attacking feral ghouls. Without hesitation, Nora aimed and started shooting the horde.

Aim, pull trigger… Aim, pull trigger…

She didn't stop. She didn't think. She would just aim for the head and pull the trigger. Automatically without pause. The pile of ghoul bodies become higher and higher around her. And any that she missed Dogmeat would tackle and with a few choice shakes and bites he killed them as well.

It was messy. With each bullet that found its mark, there would be a splay of blood and bits of flesh and depending on where the bullet landed brain matter or guts as well. Dogmeat left his own trail of the mess too, severed hands and limbs with trailing entails. It was a slaughter.

Nora didn't know how long the waves of ferals lasted. Her arm was aching but adrenaline kept it up. After what seemed to be hours the ferals seemed to have retreated finally and Nora could lower her weapon to take in the carnage around her. It looked bad and she knew she looked the same. Some of the ferals had gotten to basically on top of her before she could dispose of them. She had scratches and slashes from those as well as she could feel the sticky blood and bits of gore on her. With a trembling and aching arm, she wiped her face to clear it from most of the scarlet blood dribbling down. She only managed to smear it all over as her sleeve wasn't in a better condition than her face. But at least the sensation of liquid running down her skin was gone. Nora saw that Dogmeat had promptly sat down to start licking down his own stained coat she couldn't help but to grimace at the dog.

Turning away from her dog she holstered her gun and walked tentatively over the bodies to where a man had just removed his power armour helmet to give orders to what she surmised was subordinates. Nora knew these were Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, the Commonwealth had been rife with whispers about them.

The man in the power armour turned to her with what seemed to be a raised brow and Nora reacted with a simple "Hi…"

He seemed to be quite handsome Nora realised. In fact, he was probably the best-looking male she had come across in this wasteland yet.

"We appreciate the assistance, civilian, but what is your business here?" he asked her to the point.

Nora frowned, she didn't want to be rude but she had basically saved their arses as they were clearly on the losing side when she had arrived. But this man seemed as if it was not necessary? Perhaps he was proud… She knew Nate had been very proud as well.

Deciding on the benefit of the doubt she responded to his question without being sarcastic - as she is wont to do quite frequently. "I'm Nora, I picked up your emergency signal and came to assist. And you are?"

The man seemed to relax just the tiniest bit without losing the proud set of his shoulders. It intrigued her all the more. This man was a soldier, through and through.

"I am Paladin Danse, from the Brotherhood of Steel. If I appear suspicious it's because our mission here has been difficult…"

Nora nodded in acceptance of his explanation as he continued telling her of their difficulties since they had arrived and their objectives. His voice was steady and soothing. It was completely different than Nate's, but she couldn't help but feel the same calm comfort listening to him that she felt with her husband. It was bizarre, but he had the same effect on her and it puzzled her.

She shook herself from her reverie when she realised he'd asked for her help with a mission to ArcJet Systems and that she had apparently already agreed… Without even noticing it.

Oh boy… his voice would make her agree to anything if she wasn't careful.

They were standing outside ArcJet Systems and Nora had just handed over the Deep Range Transmitter. Paladin Danse didn't really know how to just say thank you she realised. He had a whole off track way of going about it, and to anyone lessor, they would have interpreted it as nonchalance and be offended. But she saw through him now…

With a smile, she accepted his unofficial thanks and compliment on her abilities. He didn't pay her with caps though, but instead with his personal energy rifle. She was touched.

It was when he asked her to join the Brotherhood of Steel that she came back to the present - she really had to focus more on not letting his voice lull her so much.

Nora frowned, on the one hand, she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. But on the other hand, she had nothing else better to do, there was the Minute Men but they were more like unofficial friends and home. Not a cause to follow at this point in time. Nora's eyes then rested on the power armour Paladin Danse wore…

It was better than the old clunky set she had at Sanctuary. And she could bet they had a lot of upgrades and general supplies on hand as such an influential faction in the wastelands. It is what she needed to follow her lead into the Glowing Sea…Maybe if she could get Danse on her side...

And so, before Nora could overly analyse her quick decision she found herself agreeing to join the Brotherhood. Agreeing to follow Paladin Danse. For real, the loyalty she already knew would be to him alone and not any faction. But that is something she would keep to herself for now.

And so Nora found herself following the man with the voice that comforted her, back to the station to await what he planned for next. For maybe, just maybe, with Nate's voice that was disappearing all the more, she had found another voice to speak to her conscience.


End file.
